Bad Habits - Red state - December 07 2005

Everywhere you turn in video games, someone is using the bathroom. This trend started on a massive scale in the Sims. The latest example of going potty shows up in Indigo Prophecy. Not only must you use every toilet in sight, but this actually relieves your character’s anxious mood so you can win the game.

??
You may wonder what the point is of adding such realism to games. Often, there is no point, except for game makers to show us they can pull it off. But Indigo Prophecy makes realism matter by integrating its consequences deeply into a dialogue-rich, blood-red thriller.

??
For instance, you have to hide a bloody shirt in a washing machine before a cop breaks into your house. You also must cover your bloody arms with bandages before the cop sees you. These menial tasks become intense in context. You’re a killer, and getting away with murder means paying attention to details.

??
Actually, you play not just as Lucas, a man who knifed a stranger in a seedy public bathroom. You also play as the two cops who are tracking down Lucas. That’s right — you kill, then hunt for yourself. The detective work isn’t easy just because you, the gamer, know who the killer is. Indigo doesn’t let your left hand know what your right hand is up to.

??
This also isn’t a typical action-adventure. For one thing, the characters are sympathetic and fleshed out. But you also don’t just shoot stuff. You make choices by picking phrases presented to you on the screen. Some choices are small — wash your face, read e-mail, try to kiss your ex-girlfriend. Other choices are huge, and require different choice-selection sub-games.

??
For instance, to survive an attack from giant supernatural bugs, you must play a sort of “Simon Says” memory game. As bugs crawl at you, you can’t just run from them. Instead, a series of flashing lights and arrows appear on the screen. You press the corresponding buttons on your joystick, or you die.

??
In other words, Indigo Prophecy is a cross-pollination of three totally different types of games. A) It has the movie-like look, and some of the button-mashing, of an adventure title. It features brain teasers found in strategy games. And C) it’s a life simulator that regards toilets, coffee-drinking and myriad other daily tasks.

??
Indigo Prophecy isn’t the first title to be three subspecies of games at once. But it does prove that video games evolve into new forms, just like everything else on the planet. Like evolution, it has problems. Walking characters in a straight line is surprisingly difficult. And some dullness accompanies life-simulating. (You must turn on the oven to cook, ho-hum.)

??
But it’s often intriguing. It even comes with a defense of its own bloody violence. A satirical newspaper item appears in the game, saying kids under 18 shouldn’t be allowed to play video games:

??
“‘The problem is not the availability of weapons,’ declared a spokesman for the national gun owner’s syndicate. ‘Every American citizen has the right to buy and bear firearms. The real problem is those video games. They are a veritable threat to our youth.’”

??
Yep, that kind of media denouncement of games is just like real life, too, if not as crass as toilet habits.

??
thegamedork@creativeloafing.com

??
Doug Elfman is an award-winning columnist who is also the TV critic at the Chicago Sun-Times.

??
New To You — Used Game Of The Week

??
Destroy All Humans! is one of the finest, funnest and hardest games of the year. And now the alien-invasion title — which pits you as a little green dude with a ray gun — is selling in used-game stores and online for $20 and less. The game is cute, if violent, and lampoons the sci-fi adventures of the 1950s. Available for Xbox and PS2. Rated T for language, sexual themes and violence.